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A daring look at the underbelly of the global art market, LOOT exposes the criminal network that used child soldiers to violently raid Cambodian temples then delivered blood antiquities to the homes of billionaires and elite museums.
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00:00:20To us Cambodians, the descendant of the Khmer civilization,
00:00:25each of these artifacts has special meaning.
00:00:33It's a symbol of protection.
00:00:36They are symbols of unity.
00:00:43It's a symbol of our soul.
00:00:49Looting and illicit trafficking is why our nation was broken.
00:01:09I don't think people realize that there was such violence.
00:01:13There was people dying because of hacking those culture.
00:01:17These are bigger than just regular run-of-the-mill cases.
00:01:22These artifacts, once they're gone, they're gone forever.
00:01:33When I walk through a museum today and I look at those statues, I just know that there's
00:01:38so much history that the people looking at those statues don't want to know.
00:01:43They really don't want to know.
00:01:45If they know, they would go back and ask for a refund.
00:01:49They would say, why don't you charge us to see these blood antiquities?
00:01:52Why do you even have these here?
00:02:00People lost their lives.
00:02:04People lost their part of the body.
00:02:07They are family members.
00:02:08They tried to get those statues out.
00:02:13They tried to get those statues out.
00:02:17They were red начал.
00:02:21They tried to get rid of them.
00:02:25They went to many archaeological sites.
00:02:30I've never seen one absolutely completely plundered.
00:02:34In a very short time period, they fell victim to war profiteers.
00:02:38They fell victim to greed.
00:02:41It would seem that it was highly organized by people who had finances
00:02:47and the power had to be someone in authority.
00:02:53The networks behind them were very advanced.
00:02:55The smuggling routes were complicated.
00:02:57These are the difficult investigation.
00:03:01The illicit trade in art and antiquities is funding organized crime.
00:03:05It's funding violent extremism.
00:03:08Death threats calls in the morning at 3 o'clock.
00:03:10People have families. They've got kids.
00:03:13You know, you don't put that stuff at risk.
00:03:16This belongs to the temple here, but now it's in Thailand.
00:03:20It's in the US. It's in the UK.
00:03:23We were afraid.
00:03:25But on the other hand, you want, like, so badly to get the Scotcher back home.
00:03:43My daughter and my bodybuilder chef talked to two priests independent of one another.
00:03:50Both of the priests indicated that in some previous life, I was Khmer.
00:03:56And that what I collect had once belonged to man.
00:04:02In 1997, Mr. Douglas Slotford requested me to take him to Montesray.
00:04:10But I said, no, dear sir, it is impossible.
00:04:13Oh, I know, but I will hire the guards.
00:04:21Really, I do not know, sir. I do not know.
00:04:24Mr. Douglas said, no, I really want to go.
00:04:28It's very persistent so much.
00:04:31My family was poor, and I lost my father.
00:04:37And I was very afraid.
00:04:40We took a helicopter to Cockay with six people.
00:04:47You know, my first time to get by helicopter.
00:04:52When they land down, I vomited.
00:04:56Because, like you say, kings.
00:05:01But we were very scared to walk from the rice fields to the temple.
00:05:08Because we were afraid of landmines.
00:05:10We saw the sign with the skulls and two crosses underneath.
00:05:16I asked the guard to go first.
00:05:19So then the guard decided to burn the rice stalks and the sand to get away to the temple.
00:05:26And then one landmine exploded.
00:05:33And then I said he had a very special camera.
00:05:36And so he had to zoom to take the picture.
00:05:45When I saw the beautiful sculptures, I called him,
00:05:49and he said, there sir, come here.
00:05:50And then he said, oh, go ahead.
00:05:52He took the picture.
00:06:01You know, you would take people like the Lindemans, who were these billionaires,
00:06:04Martin Lerner, who at the time was the curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
00:06:08to these remote jungle sites.
00:06:09It must have been very exciting.
00:06:11And then having someone like Latchford show them around
00:06:13and have so much knowledge about all of these items.
00:06:16And I'm sure he was very entertaining.
00:06:23There was a British stone conservator.
00:06:25Simon Warwick is his name.
00:06:28He had been working at this beautiful site of Koke,
00:06:31which used to be the capital of the Khmer Empire.
00:06:36The statues there are very, very distinct and very different.
00:06:39This is the site of this beautiful piece that they call the Duryodhana.
00:06:44And he spotted two pieces of stone in the ground.
00:06:48These blocks just had the feet attached and the body was nowhere in sight.
00:06:53This is pretty much where they were when we saw the feet the first time.
00:07:00And since then they've excavated this trench.
00:07:05He happened to be in a library and he saw a statue and he could see by the position of
00:07:10the legs.
00:07:11He said, you know, this kind of looks like it might fit one of those pedestals.
00:07:14And sure enough, he kind of lined them up and he said, like, you know, I think this is matching.
00:07:20A few years later, Eric Bordano, a French researcher, he was able to do computer modeling to show that that
00:07:27statue in Adoration and Glory,
00:07:29said to be owned by a private collection, was the statue that matched the pedestal.
00:07:34In 2010, this Belgian widow decided that she wanted to sell the Duryodhana statue that her husband had acquired.
00:07:43So she reached out to Sotheby's, which is obviously a very elite auction house, and said, look, I really want
00:07:48to sell this.
00:07:51Sotheby's put that statue on the cover of its auction of Southeast Asian art for an estimated value of two
00:07:59to three million dollars.
00:08:05So Cambodia then sent a letter to Sotheby saying, you know, don't sell it because, you know, the feet are
00:08:11found.
00:08:12This statue belongs to Cambodia.
00:08:14Within hours to spare, this auction was stopped.
00:08:20U.S. authorities said, look, like, this is looted. We want to return it to Cambodia.
00:08:24And Sotheby said, no, no, no, no, no, we want to sell it and we have the right to sell
00:08:27it.
00:08:27And so they, in the search for the Providence, reached out to Emma Bunker, who also was a very close
00:08:33friend of Douglas Latchford's.
00:08:34A lot of the emails between Emma Bunker and Douglas Latchford were very illuminating.
00:08:39And it was clear that he definitely was the first owner, because they were then trying to cover for him.
00:08:45You know, I think that kind of made him a person of interest.
00:08:57I don't know where they imagined that I owned the piece.
00:09:03But let me confirm to you first that I did not own the piece.
00:09:09I had nothing to do with it.
00:09:13So the Pandora Papers was this cache of nearly 12 million financial documents from offshore secrecy havens that showed basically
00:09:24how wealthy people and also sometimes criminals conceal their assets.
00:09:29With the art market in general, you have items worth millions of dollars that are being sold in a very
00:09:37non-transparent way, that are changing hands, often across international borders.
00:09:41I ended up working on the Latchford one, and so I just was basically going through every single document I
00:09:46could find.
00:09:47Shortly after the Sotheby's suit, the Latchfords turned to Trident Trust, which was this offshore service provider.
00:09:54We were able to see, oh, this guy Latchford is pretty interesting.
00:09:58Where did the antiquities go? And where did the money go? And we were trying to track both of those
00:10:02things.
00:10:03What interested us was about three months after the sale was actually stopped is when you saw the trust, the
00:10:08scandal trust being formed, right?
00:10:10And so, I mean, could be coincidence.
00:10:12Certainly not a coincidence. It starts crawling away some of the artifacts into a trust, right?
00:10:17Right. And also some of the finances too, right? Because that's a lot of money.
00:10:27Any time I would see a story about law enforcement or crime, but in particular like the federal agents, I
00:10:34just knew that that's what I needed to be doing.
00:10:37It was just like a calling, and I'm like, that's what I'm going to do.
00:10:39Narcotics investigations, money launderers, fraudulent passports.
00:10:44I mean, over the years, I had done all of those types of cases.
00:10:48I hear rumblings of an agent in our office who's recovering ancient artifacts, so I sought him out.
00:10:55He told me he was drowning in cases and could really use the help.
00:10:59And there's been no looking back ever since. It's been a wild ride.
00:11:05Whenever we start an antiquities case, we approach it from two aspects.
00:11:09Can we prove that the piece is dirty? And then, can we prove that someone committed a crime?
00:11:16Did someone knowingly smuggle something illicit?
00:11:20Two aspects. The piece itself, and then whether someone broke the law.
00:11:25I knew Lashford was dirty, from the Duryodhana case and seeing pieces that his name was associated with.
00:11:31What I was trying to figure out is how involved, how dirty was Lashford?
00:11:38In 2016, I led Operation Indochina Peninsula Plunder, which was the investigation into Douglas Lashford and its network.
00:11:47If you're going to allege that a particular artifact originates in a certain temple,
00:11:53who's going to know that better than people there on the ground?
00:12:06It starts with a passion and a curiosity.
00:12:29My name is Bradley Gordon. I'm officially appointed to advise the Ministry on Repatriations of Stolen Antiquities.
00:12:38I met a lot of lawyers in my life, but he's just more like an adventure lawyer.
00:12:43You know, I walk into a museum, I feel like, oh, you know, do they have my picture behind, you
00:12:49know, somewhere?
00:12:50And they, Brad Gordon, don't let this guy in.
00:12:54He's a kind of a sweetheart and sensitive person.
00:12:57Yeah, I think Brad is more Cambodian than me.
00:13:02In 2012, he come into my office.
00:13:05We get something huge and very important for Cambodia.
00:13:10I was so, just, speed it out.
00:13:12The DOJ said to me, we're working on a case involving Sotheby's, you know, you know about Lashford, right?
00:13:19I went to the Cambodian government and said, look, there's someone out there who, you should get back his collection.
00:13:25I hear it, I just say, wow, it's huge and so important for me as Cambodian and also for Cambodia.
00:13:34If you look at Cambodia and you're considering the number of temples that these guys raided,
00:13:40the number of crime sites, the number of statues, it's an enormous amount.
00:13:57You know, we were hired to find the Looting Network.
00:14:01Our assignment was to come up here and track down villagers, track down witnesses.
00:14:08And so with Narin, the two of us went all over the country and we interviewed many, many people.
00:14:27We leave very early in the morning, around 6 a.m. on National 6.
00:14:32And after that, we keep going on the rushing of Siem Reap.
00:14:36Before Siem Reap, we have to turn right.
00:14:38It's about six hours to get through this park because there were no road.
00:14:45You know, in the beginning, I didn't quite know where Lashford fit into the picture.
00:14:57We arrive like almost the sun goes down.
00:15:01It's like opening up, there's a lot of, you know, a lot of temples everywhere.
00:15:17At the beginning, when we go there, we were not that welcome.
00:15:22Because they don't understand, you know, what we are doing there.
00:15:26We try to catch some guy, some smuggler.
00:15:31People were terrified. They were afraid.
00:15:34You know, they didn't want to talk about who was involved.
00:15:37They were willing to identify certain statues.
00:15:40You know, you remember to see the sculpture, this one and this one.
00:15:44You remember, and where are they?
00:15:46If you don't remember, maybe your uncle, your grandmother would know about something.
00:15:56Personally, I think it would take a long time to put the puzzle together.
00:16:03We have to work along with them, you know, eat what they eat,
00:16:08sit on the ground where they sit.
00:16:10And after that, you know, when you start talking to them, they thought,
00:16:13oh, now I remember something.
00:16:24we can't keep the puzzle together.
00:16:28We can't get the puzzle together.
00:16:31We have to work together.
00:16:32We can't stop trying to survive.
00:16:34We can't stop trying to survive.
00:16:36We can't stop.
00:16:39We can't stop doing any right now.
00:16:41We can't stop eating.
00:16:41I'm okay.
00:16:42it'll go back to say the first day,
00:16:44you will be right back.
00:16:49People will be right back.
00:16:51I will be right back.
00:16:55I will be right back and I will be right back.
00:16:57I am going to cry on my tongue.
00:17:00I was thinking of my brain,
00:17:02the primavera, my teeth.
00:17:04I came to the water to eat.
00:17:07I was scared too.
00:17:09I was scared too.
00:17:20The next was it.
00:17:22I had to feel good soul,
00:17:23my children,
00:17:26my children,
00:17:54The reason why we have the issues
00:17:57of looting and illicit trafficking is because there is demand.
00:18:03My people, we believe that the reason why Cambodia went through so much suffering and
00:18:12how our nation was torn apart for so many generations was because our God was displaced,
00:18:22dismembered and broken.
00:18:24You transform a piece of rock into a piece of art and then you also embed spirituality,
00:18:36sense of divinity in that piece of rock.
00:18:41They are not just statues, they are our gods, they are our kings, they are our ancestors.
00:18:48If we are not careful, my children, future generations might lose the collective memory of their identity.
00:18:59I feel very uncomfortable that we transform a sacred value for people into money.
00:19:16We have our children.
00:19:16But I am here to join the family for a short time.
00:19:35We are ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who
00:19:39are the ones who have lived in life.
00:19:39We have some problems.
00:19:44We have some problems.
00:19:46We will leave and move the lines.
00:19:57We have there in a row here.
00:20:03We are going to see the lines.
00:20:05Take a moment.
00:20:17When we first met the former looter, it took many time for them to open up.
00:20:30Blue Tiger is extraordinary.
00:20:34You know, he was a trusted lieutenant of Lyon, you know, the head of the gang.
00:20:42You know, you kind of say, oh, this is one of the leaders.
00:20:47He knows what he's talking about.
00:20:49You know, he has helped us tremendously.
00:20:54Given what was taken out of Prosecutor,
00:20:56as soon as I heard about the statues that came out of there,
00:20:58I knew that this was an extremely significant temple.
00:21:03And I now believe it may be one of the most important ones in Cambodia.
00:21:07And Blue Tiger was there and participated in the removal of the statues.
00:21:14Oh, my God.
00:21:14Yes, sir?
00:21:17.
00:21:20.
00:21:20.
00:21:20I am not alone.
00:21:21I have been living a lot.
00:21:26I am not alone.
00:21:29I am not alone.
00:21:31I am alone.
00:21:32I am alone.
00:21:32and in the early days,
00:21:39they were like the one who could have been
00:21:40to the first time.
00:21:42When they were told,
00:21:43they would be like the same way.
00:21:45They would be like a young man,
00:21:52and then they would be like a young man.
00:21:54This is a very old man.
00:21:57They would be like a young man or a young man.
00:21:59I'm a good guy.
00:22:29was a communist movement they they started guerrilla warfare from the early 60s you know
00:22:37in the 60s president nixon and his secretary say kisser planned a secret bombing of cambodia
00:22:45they bombed cambodia without telling congress
00:22:54more bombs were dropped in cambodia than any time before mankind's history i've seen anywhere from
00:23:01150 000 people were killed and up it definitely destabilized the country there's no question about
00:23:16it the khmer rouge were empowered by the bombing because so many people in the countryside joined
00:23:24the khmer rouge april 1975 khmer rouge soldiers are surging into phnom penh cambodia's capital
00:23:37widespread panic permeates the streets as the new government empties the city
00:23:42marching the population into the countryside
00:23:59they undertook a very radical transformation of cambodian society they basically tore apart
00:24:07all the traditions and institutions of cambodian life so they tore apart families
00:24:12you know schools uh you know the government um buddhism all these things they they tried to destroy
00:24:29this they they're safe
00:24:34and they stopped exploring
00:24:34i get back and forth
00:24:35i get back to the people
00:24:42they want you to stop
00:24:43the people
00:24:44they want me to do
00:24:46i look at that
00:24:47i don't know
00:25:09I think they've estimated between one and three million people died from either being murdered
00:25:14or from famine or illness. After the Khmer Rouge fell, then, you know, all these people who had been
00:25:22separated from their villages, from their families, they didn't know who was alive or who was dead.
00:25:27You know, they had no income, had to, a desperate, a desperate struggle for survival.
00:25:33There was all kinds of looting of artifacts that took place.
00:26:04Looting, theft, it happens all around the world. In conflict and crisis zones, you quite often have a breakdown of
00:26:14the
00:26:14social order. You have opportunity for criminals, but also people we wouldn't necessarily think of
00:26:23as criminals, to take advantage of that situation, maybe to feed their families.
00:26:37In 2016, Latchford, he's just a blip on the radar screen. So my first question to myself, what is Latchford
00:26:46about?
00:26:48Latchford was born in the British Raj in India and then went to boarding school. And then when he was
00:26:54about 20, he moved to Bangkok. And then he just fell in love with Khmer culture because of course,
00:27:00you know, Thailand and Cambodia share a border.
00:27:03Latchford had a reputation for hanging out with the museum glitterati, the society people.
00:27:13And he was a very high profile character around Bangkok.
00:27:17I was at dinner one evening with Francois Dujard de Berencz, who was an interior decorator.
00:27:25Francois showed me a stone female torso, and it immediately had an effect on me that would
00:27:32change my life. I was smitten and could from then on think of nothing but this wonderful torso.
00:27:42He fell in love with it and he became this collector. And he started collecting Khmer
00:27:47antiquity at this voracious speed. He became one of the most preeminent scholars of Khmer antiquities
00:27:54as well. He wrote these three coffee table books that really catapulted his name
00:27:57to the top of people who knew anything about Khmer statuary.
00:28:03One of my jobs as a journalist in Bangkok was to write a story about Douglas Latchford. And he showed
00:28:11me through his place and every little nook and cranny of that apartment had some ancient artefact
00:28:17sitting on it. He had beautiful artwork on the walls. It was very tastefully done. Pretty much
00:28:21like you'd see in a museum, but these were sitting on mantelpieces and shelves. You could see he had a
00:28:28deep affection for those pieces, probably more than he did for people.
00:28:35The fortune teller had told him that he had once been Khmer in a previous life,
00:28:39and that's why he loved all these Khmer statues.
00:28:44It's very interesting because Latchford was both public and very secretive.
00:28:50On the public side, he tried to present himself as this
00:28:54an adventurous scholar in his words. So this is kind of drawing on those colonial
00:29:02motif of a very heroic European man who goes into the jungle and discovers lost cities.
00:29:08Somebody who rescued these Khmer artefacts that had been lost to the jungle.
00:29:15When I complimented him on the amazing array of things he had in his apartment,
00:29:20he sort of laughed and he said, yeah, but my best stuff is at my daughter's place in Mayfair in
00:29:24London.
00:29:29Douglas owned the entire apartment block that he lived in. He kept the whole floor for himself,
00:29:34and it's right on a canal in the middle of Bangkok. And there was very heavy security there.
00:29:40I remember walking up to the window of the security guard there and
00:29:44and there being a number of other security guards watching me from inside the gate, all bodybuilders.
00:29:49It wasn't just one or two guys, it was about five or six. Yeah, many Schwarzeneggers, yeah,
00:29:54pocket Hercules, whatever you want to say, but they're all muscle men, bodybuilders, and obviously very strong.
00:30:03One of the things I do as a hobby is to help the Thai bodybuilding association.
00:30:10I was elected as president for Asia earlier this year.
00:30:15I'm also the president of the Thai bodybuilding association.
00:30:23His love of the Thai bodybuilding, so we're told, had more to do with his lifestyle
00:30:31than anything to do with sport.
00:30:39Mexican
00:30:40But I got into my mind when up front, when toward Kenford broke my emotions opened my expression.
00:30:48I opened the door down window by a critic.
00:30:52I should walk along through the mansion.
00:30:55I should walk out mymaster, with with are quienes inナ cassette.
00:31:00I have pressure now.
00:31:01I'm walking by the conservatives on the floor,
00:31:02But I walked out the little garden door to a party.
00:31:13Halfway through the interview he said let's have a pause.
00:31:16He picked up a bell on the table and rang a little bell.
00:31:19The door swung open and a Thai guy came in with a tight shirt on and a Thai, a butler
00:31:26type guy.
00:31:27The bulging muscles were nearly splitting his shirt.
00:31:31And he came in and said, would you like Earl Grey or English Breakfast?
00:31:59And he said, would you like to have a wedding like this one?
00:32:06I would like to get a wedding like this one.
00:32:10And he said, would you like me, would you like me, would you like me?
00:32:29And, you know, probably kind of an interesting, strange, like, dinner conversation companion.
00:32:36When I went and interviewed some of the looters, they talk about how they actually met with Douglas Latchford.
00:32:42So, you know, he has direct communication and direct access to the looters.
00:33:02Since that day, it's all over time.
00:33:04You know, I know it's a good place.
00:33:08I'm a wrote-led guy.
00:33:10He's a good place, and I'm a bad guy.
00:33:13And I'm good.
00:33:14I'm not going to get to see you.
00:33:16I'm an excellent person who is one of my friends,
00:33:18but I'm the member.
00:33:19I am very confident.
00:33:20How do you do it to I'm going to get to?
00:33:30Oh, God, we know the he and know the brain she ought to clean me
00:33:38We made a first grade, and we got to go on the road.
00:33:42We got to go down the road, and we got to go down the road.
00:33:52We had to go to the river,
00:33:55and we had to go down here.
00:33:56We had to go down the road,
00:34:00and I had to go down the road.
00:34:07I was a kid that I had to go out.
00:34:14The man who was in the house was a great place.
00:34:14I was a man who was a man who was a man.
00:34:16Then he was a man who was a man who was a man who was a man.
00:34:49I had to go to the right direction.
00:34:52I had to go to the right direction.
00:34:57I wanted to go to the left.
00:35:00When I started, I was going to go to the right direction.
00:35:12How did I go to the right direction?
00:35:41We sat down with Blue Tiger.
00:35:43Blue Tiger showed the images of artifacts that we were still hunting.
00:35:47He was able to, and another looter was able to identify some pieces that they were directly
00:35:53responsible for having taken out of the country, which was, you know, so rare.
00:35:58The entire interview was a wow moment.
00:36:30We found on Douglas Lodge for a computer a photo of this temple, and it showed just the top
00:36:37of that piece up there, and it was labeled peacock.
00:36:44So what we heard from Lyon, how he came here in 1997, and he dug up the peacock.
00:37:02I'm trying to understand.
00:37:03I'm trying to eat it.
00:37:07I got my drink.
00:37:09I'm trying to get a drink.
00:37:14It's time for me.
00:37:16I'm trying to help with that.
00:37:16I'm trying to help.
00:37:18I'm trying to help with that amount of food.
00:37:24And I'm telling you,
00:37:27I'm trying to feed a lot of food.
00:37:28I'm trying to keep it in the environment.
00:37:30I'm trying to learn how to do it.
00:37:45I was, I had my eyes wide open and my jaw dropped the entire time we were talking to them
00:37:50because
00:37:50who, what, where, when, how, right? That's what you need to prove a case and we have that from
00:37:57the mouth of birth people involved. The Scanda on Peacock statue, which sold for 1.5 million
00:38:05dollars, I was able to successfully track it down and I got it returned to Cambodia.
00:38:11It's a unique masterpiece for Cambodia. It's got it from one piece of stone, from pedestal,
00:38:19you know, to the top and with all those great detail, what made Cambodian and the local people
00:38:27are most happy about, you know, the return of this piece. Scanda is our god of love and very powerful
00:38:37now in Cambodia.
00:38:53And then your hunt continues because there's so many of them.
00:39:00After the sculpture were taken out from Korki compound, they were, you know, take it to the border, to Thailand,
00:39:11to Bangkok, to Lachford.
00:39:25As we come to learn, there are different Khmer Rouge controllers of areas in between the temple in the forest
00:39:37and the jungle and getting it across the border and into Thailand.
00:39:42But now they have to come to the roof and them came up by using office buildings when she came
00:39:51to police it and I kept the embroidered stick.
00:40:00Who would give, like, this historic and preserved in Iran.
00:40:06This memorandum won like us, to people around the world that whenever during the time of screen.
00:40:08This man who has simply keptweight and onlyakah there was so many hours in the city as a visa and
00:40:11they were being able to довольно and so many hours now,
00:40:11They still came to come to economicPeter, usually they were and so their body was quite a pena.
00:40:13It's the most complicated position
00:40:16to try to get the help of the program.
00:40:20I have been here for a long time.
00:40:25I have been redeemed here for a long time.
00:40:28I'm here for a long time.
00:40:32I own this man.
00:40:36I've been there for years here today.
00:40:36I'm here to go through.
00:40:36We stopped here,
00:40:37because I have been here for a long time.
00:40:40I have been trying to learn the same for him.
00:41:00Those people, they know they are selling their soul to the outsider to exchange with what
00:41:09they need the most, like food, medicine, you know, most of the looters told us how they
00:41:15get paid less than a hundred U.S. dollars for 15 people and for a week of work.
00:41:26He's selling statues for one, 1.5 a piece.
00:41:31We know Sivan Skanda, he tried to sell for 25 million, he had 25 million dollars.
00:41:35And he had another statue, the Durga, that's going back to Vietnam, he tried to sell for
00:41:4034 million dollars, 34 million.
00:41:57Once I realized that Lafayette's a bigger player, you know, Lafayette becomes his own board.
00:42:02Who are his sources? His sources are the looters in Cambodia.
00:42:06Who is he supplying? Numerous entities.
00:42:09They're going to supply museums, they're going to supply gallery owners, they're going to
00:42:14supply private collectors.
00:42:16Now, Lafayette's in the middle and you have those arms branching out to all these other
00:42:21people who have received illicit property from him.
00:42:25Who else is helping Lafayette with provenance?
00:42:27Who is Lafayette's restorers?
00:42:29And then his resellers, there could be a dozen of them.
00:42:33Before you know it, you have so many names on the board.
00:42:35It was simply a matter of, okay, what's next?
00:42:45You know, among all the many people who aided and abetted Douglas Latchford, Emma Bunker is
00:42:53probably the most important person.
00:42:55Emma Bunker was a major co-conspirator of Douglas Latchford's.
00:43:00Because Emma Bunker wasn't attached to the Denver Art Museum, Latchford could introduce
00:43:06pieces to a major museum and have Emma Bunker vouch for the integrity of the pieces for the
00:43:12purpose of laundering so they could turn around and resell it.
00:43:15Using the name of the Denver Art Museum, oh, this piece was just shown at the Denver Art Museum.
00:43:22So no one would ever think that there was a problem with it.
00:43:24She was also a scholar.
00:43:26I think she never actually finished her PhD.
00:43:29But she did really want to be well known as a scholar.
00:43:34And she helped him co-author a number of these coffee table books about Khmer statuary, which
00:43:39authorities later said were essentially used to launder these looted statues.
00:43:45Not everything that was photographed in the books was looted, but that's how it works, right?
00:43:50You take some legitimate ones, you mix them with the ones that are looted, and poof, Providence, right?
00:43:58Providence is the history of an artifact, meaning the ownership history.
00:44:04A lot of museums don't actually list Providence information.
00:44:07They would not share those details with us.
00:44:09There's a number of Latchford pieces that have an Ian Donaldson reference in the Providence.
00:44:17Some of them were supposedly written after Ian Donaldson had already died.
00:44:21It's clearly letters that were cooked up by Latchford just to be able to show the museum something.
00:44:29I mean, how cynical is that, that you use your dead friend's name and, you know, imitate, try to fake
00:44:37a signature for your dead friend?
00:44:39It's really quite sick, isn't it?
00:44:46There's a list at Homeland Security, and on that list is maybe a dozen museums that have Latchford pieces.
00:44:55And so, the Met was in New York, I was based in New York.
00:44:58We knew they had some pieces, that would be the next one to go after.
00:45:03There are some clear signs of looting, and it's something that we look for when we're pouring over evidence.
00:45:09A statue will get broken into smaller parts, makes it easier to ship.
00:45:13Soil deposits are a thing that we look for.
00:45:16Anything that's exposed to the elements, you'll start to see some corrosion.
00:45:20Corrosion is a red flag.
00:45:25We have security on the front steps.
00:45:34Hold on, Southeast Asia.
00:45:35Oh, I'm sorry, Southeast Asia.
00:45:37Go there.
00:45:44There's so many pieces here that we have records on.
00:45:48I don't even know where to begin.
00:45:50So, this headless female figure, we had the opportunity to speak with one of the looters in Cambodia.
00:46:00And he admitted his role in the removal of this piece and transfer across the border into Thailand.
00:46:07And on the condition report for this piece, it notes burial soil found on the piece.
00:46:16For this bronze Avalokichvara, we know that it arrived heavily damaged from the Met's own internal reporting.
00:46:25We have, from Latchford's email, source photos, source photos showing that the piece and the condition in which it was
00:46:32found.
00:46:33This four-armed bronze Avalokichvara, the Met's own condition report states that it arrived heavily corroded.
00:46:43And you can even still see parts of the corrosion on the top crown and on one of the arms.
00:46:51So, you know, typical evidence of pieces that were looted when they arrived corroded.
00:47:06I have stuff on this one, too.
00:47:10The standing forum, Vishnu, has so many discrepancies in the provenance documents contained at the Met.
00:47:18We learned the true story of when it was found and when Latchford acquired it and we presented that evidence
00:47:26to the Met.
00:47:27It completely contradicts the story that they have on their own records.
00:47:31And we showed the documentation to support that.
00:47:35This piece has bad provenance and was looted, like so many others.
00:47:39It should be a no-brainer for this one to go back.
00:47:50I didn't run into him very many times, but I knew him.
00:47:55He's a person you stay away from.
00:47:57Do you recognize these pieces from the Met Museum?
00:48:01Either of these?
00:48:06Oh, these are obviously very good pieces here.
00:48:09Yeah.
00:48:10Did you ever own them?
00:48:12Because in his emails...
00:48:13They knew that I owed them all...
00:48:15Yeah, so in his emails, in Latchford's emails, he said that you sold those to the Met.
00:48:24Both of these pieces.
00:48:25No, certainly not.
00:48:26You didn't?
00:48:27Certainly not.
00:48:29Certainly not.
00:48:31If I would have owned them, I would have kept them.
00:48:36Evidence has been presented to the Met that a number of the pieces that they have were looted.
00:48:43Straight up looted eyewitness testimony from some of the looters that were involved.
00:48:49From the late 80s to the mid-90s, the curator of Southeast Southeast Asian art at the Metropolitan
00:48:54Museum of Art had to fill an immense new gallery that they were building.
00:48:59And one of the people that could supply that is Douglas Latchford.
00:49:02I went in 2015 in the Metropolitan Museum, I feel horrible, and I don't want to move from there.
00:49:13I don't think visitors realize that.
00:49:17You know, the Metropolitan kept saying to me, show me your evidence.
00:49:20And we kept asking them for their provenance documents, they kept saying, look at our website.
00:49:25So, you know, there's hardly anything there.
00:49:29There's some records on some pieces where they have two conflicting pieces of provenance for the same piece.
00:49:37In their records.
00:49:38Like, here's where we got the piece from, and then a completely different story which contradicts that one.
00:49:43The years are off, the sources, the names are different, and they're in the same packet for one of the
00:49:49pieces on display.
00:49:55You think that the Met with the, you know, the team that they have, if they see different conflicting provenance
00:50:01and they have those records, that might raise a red flag for them.
00:50:04And no one has made the connection that they're different, or that they conflict each other.
00:50:17To ignore the issue, I think it's disrespectful.
00:50:23My name is Sophie Lynn Chiem Shapiro, and I am the founder and director of Sophie Lynn Art Ensemble.
00:50:34Performing at the Met was a form of quiet or silent protest, to bring attention to the issues of looted
00:50:45antiquity.
00:51:03this is the metropolitan museum of art um i'm more disappointed than i'm than i'm angry
00:51:10it's the met like what are you doing the met gala tickets are 75 000 each i know nothing else
00:51:20of
00:51:20the met gala except that kim kardashian posed in front of a egyptian sarcophagus made of gold and
00:51:26we seized it the old british museums used to argue that well if we didn't save these
00:51:42you know good lord you know they would have just been lost which probably isn't true but it becomes
00:51:48a justification for them basically handling stolen goods admittedly these things were
00:51:56moonlighted out of cambodia and wound up somewhere else but had they not been they would likely have
00:52:03been shot up for target practice by the khmer rouge my bicycle isn't very well looked after by me
00:52:11because i think i leave it outside all the time but someone else always brings their bicycle inside and
00:52:16therefore it's in much better condition that's not a reason for that other person to own my bicycle
00:52:22when i buy a piece on principle i thoroughly research it i certainly don't want to buy a piece that's
00:52:30been stolen or anything it is true that some of the temples there had pieces stolen but it wasn't on
00:52:37a large scale bullshit that's not true
00:53:05welcome to uncle conservations here is look like this hospital for the object
00:53:11more than 10 000 objects here
00:53:28so
00:53:29i try so hard to go king on small piece of the broken object and try to check this this
00:53:35one is belong
00:53:36you can see the texture and the same or different when we find together we can make like this
00:53:50when we find a small piece you can fit together we very happy oh my god i was happy and
00:53:56proud about that
00:53:59make me angry
00:54:02if i see him i will kill
00:54:05or fight him
00:54:19so this is a legitimate profession yeah but it's not legitimate when those restorers are taking in goods that they
00:54:26know are stolen
00:54:27and uh and repairing them
00:54:31neil perry smith is an art restorer i arrested him for his role in restoring stolen and looted antiquities
00:54:40neil perry was in london and the artifacts had to be shipped to london for neil perry to start working
00:54:48on them
00:54:49he helped latchford to clean up and remove the dirt and other evidence of looting
00:54:55once a finished fully restored artifact is ready to to sell
00:55:02it's mostly latchford reaching out to his circle his crew and showing pictures and oftentimes those pictures show the
00:55:09pre-restoration and post restoration photographs so he's basically saying here's when i found it and here's what it looks
00:55:18like now
00:55:19take an artifact that was worth you know a hundred thousand dollars to latchford and it gets you know completely
00:55:27restored to where now he could sell it for millions
00:55:36museums were a little bit easier for us to investigate the museum items private collectors it's it's a whole different
00:55:42world
00:55:43and it's very very difficult as an investigative reporter because they're basically a black box unless the owners
00:55:49want to showcase their private collection for some reason you might never know that that collection even exists
00:56:00brad just sent me this very discreet picture he had gotten it from associate of latchford who gave him no
00:56:05information about it
00:56:05what do you know about this and i said oh my gosh all of these chimera antiquities sitting in this
00:56:10billionaire's well living room
00:56:19where did this come from so we started trying to to search we found the name of the street we
00:56:25found some details about the couple
00:56:26but then we were able to uh kind of triangulate based on other real estate listings that had other similar
00:56:33pictures that matched that this was actually the lindemans
00:56:38we have the metropolitan museum of art and now we have the lindemans in each of those the number of
00:56:44pieces they
00:56:46had was far greater than we thought going in
00:56:51george lindemans senior was the patriarch of this family he and his wife freda where tons of properties
00:56:57they have tons of companies i remember when i i met them they are very high class people and upscale
00:57:04people
00:57:07access to the looters puts a spotlight on the lindemans because the looters are referencing specific pieces and we sat
00:57:17down with blue tiger
00:57:18the picture showed the images
00:57:21oh
00:57:22oh
00:57:23oh
00:57:23oh
00:57:23oh
00:57:24oh
00:57:25oh
00:57:26oh
00:57:28oh
00:57:29oh
00:57:29oh
00:57:30oh
00:57:31oh
00:57:31oh
00:57:31oh
00:57:31oh
00:57:32oh
00:57:32oh
00:57:32oh
00:57:32oh
00:57:33oh
00:57:33oh
00:57:40oh
00:57:42oh
00:57:43oh
00:57:43oh
00:57:44oh
00:57:44oh
00:57:44oh
00:57:44oh
00:57:52How people find, you know, happiness to have the head of the sculpture, to have just the head cut in
00:58:05their living room.
00:58:22Those should go back to where they belong, to their original place.
00:58:30Oh, many studies, yeah, the study of reclining with snow from Versailles.
00:58:40A lot of studies in the same house.
00:58:45Wow, it should be returned one day, not in the living room.
00:58:57We decided to do a spin-off investigation.
00:58:59You know, why do the Lindemans have these pieces and what else can we find?
00:59:02So we started trying to track down any other photographs we could find of other properties,
00:59:07including this 2021 Architectural Digest thread, which we realized was Sloan Lindemans.
00:59:13It was this beautiful courtyard that had these pedestals on it that were empty.
00:59:19Combing through Peter Marino's website, who's the architect who worked with the Lindemans.
00:59:23And they found an identical photo, except these pedestals were not empty.
00:59:28They had heads on them.
00:59:30And they had these Khmer heads, these really beautiful Khmer heads.
00:59:33To me, that's all very suspicious.
00:59:35We have the picture with the heads, and then we have the same beautiful courtyard with no heads,
00:59:40them actually photoshopped out, and we thought, well, this, this is great.
00:59:47It's not until we start getting records back and we're looking and we're like, oh my God.
00:59:53A massive collection of rare, extremely valuable and important pieces that needed to go back to Cambodia.
01:00:03The Lindemans amassed a collection valued around 35 million dollars.
01:00:09And people who have that much money, I think they want to be special.
01:00:14They want to have something special. They want to have something that nobody else has.
01:00:17The Lindemans, they just weren't as cooperative.
01:00:21But ultimately, it came down to, you have a choice to make.
01:00:27We can go the easy way or the hard way.
01:00:44I used to see Lashford on the press.
01:00:48He was like a respectful guy by the art community.
01:00:53He certainly felt like he was untouchable, and so you might have to wonder why he thought so.
01:01:04One drag-minded, and he had very good friends in high paces.
01:01:12He was protected, and he wouldn't tolerate any competition.
01:01:20I got an email from Douglas saying he'd like to catch up with me at the National Museum in Phnom
01:01:26Penh.
01:01:26They gave him Cambodian citizenship.
01:01:29The Deputy Prime Minister at the time conferred Cambodian citizenship on Douglas
01:01:34because he'd donated so much to that museum.
01:01:36I have donated, I think, seven pieces back.
01:01:41And I think these are primarily pieces that they don't have representation of.
01:01:49And my family and I have decided that in the future we would like to donate more back to Cambodia.
01:02:07The Deputy Prime Minister Sok Aan came, made a speech, and gave me a Khmer title.
01:02:15A royal title.
01:02:19So, he came, he'd lied to the Cambodians, he flashed around a lot of money.
01:02:25I think he tricked them.
01:02:26I mean, they probably thought they were doing the right thing.
01:02:29And in terms of getting these medallions, Boy Scout badges, yeah, great, knock yourself out.
01:02:35You know, it just legitimizes him.
01:02:38He's got his bodybuilders, he's got his lawsuits, he's got his lawyers, he's got the Bunker family.
01:02:42He's got lots of money.
01:02:44He had his addresses in London, museums around the world.
01:02:48He's got everything he wanted.
01:02:55With the bodybuilders, came the bodyguards.
01:02:59Yeah, they had a reputation.
01:03:02That scared a lot of people, in particular, local journalists or fixers who might be working on this type of
01:03:11story.
01:03:13He was offloading his collection in exchange for diamonds, in exchange for other antiquities.
01:03:24Hello?
01:03:26Good morning.
01:03:28Hi there.
01:03:31I got your email.
01:03:33Why are people interfering and coming to inform you that I sold some bronzers?
01:03:39Well, I think they were upset that things got sold.
01:03:44I think they thought that they were sort of important and it was funny that they were sold.
01:03:54I mean, I was surprised.
01:03:56Well, who told you this?
01:03:58Why were these sold?
01:04:01I think they were listed as scanned of trust.
01:04:05What's it got to do with them?
01:04:08People get curious when they move around.
01:04:13That's all.
01:04:14Curiosity killed the cat.
01:04:17So what else do you know?
01:04:19Nothing.
01:04:20Anything new and exciting?
01:04:21No, everything's quiet here.
01:04:24Well, is that good or not?
01:04:27No news is good news.
01:04:32We see him conspiring between him and Emma Bunker or him and Nancy to manipulate the data or the information
01:04:41that's out there to sort of dance around it.
01:04:44Yeah.
01:04:44Their imagination has gone wild.
01:04:47They've seen too many Indiana Jones films.
01:04:52Nancy Weiner was huge for the Latchford case.
01:04:56She was an art dealer in Manhattan and she specialized in Asian and Southeast Asian antiquities.
01:05:04She was already being looked at by Homeland Security.
01:05:08In March of 2016, her gallery is raided and she's subsequently arrested.
01:05:16Having access to Nancy's records really is the breakthrough moment in the case against Latchford.
01:05:21Because now we see not only is he so blatant in his emails with her about where he's finding pieces
01:05:29in a field and the source and the condition that they're coming in,
01:05:33but he's also blatantly discussing with her how to make provenance.
01:05:39What kind of provenance are you going to need to sell this?
01:05:41Is this good enough?
01:05:43I'll write this letter.
01:05:44And he would send her like little samples.
01:05:46So having her records blew the door open.
01:05:51I've just been offered this Sri Lankan bronze head.
01:05:55Height, 18 centimeters.
01:05:58I've compared it with one I have.
01:06:00They're looking for the body.
01:06:01No luck so far.
01:06:03All they found last week were two landmines.
01:06:06What price would you be interested to buy it at?
01:06:09Let me know, as I'll have to bargain for it.
01:06:12I've got one.
01:06:13Fresh out of the ground.
01:06:14We're cleaning the dirt off it.
01:06:16Hold on to your hat.
01:06:17Just been offered this 56 centimeter Buddha.
01:06:20Just excavated.
01:06:22It's still across the border, but wow.
01:06:26This is smuggling 101.
01:06:27The looter finds it, sells it to Latchford.
01:06:30Latchford's going to turn around, sell it in Manhattan to an art dealer.
01:06:34For an investigator, you don't often get like this smoking gun, you know, kind of material.
01:06:41We used the documentation that we received from Nancy to indict Latchford.
01:06:48In 2019, Douglas Latchford was finally indicted.
01:06:53Conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
01:06:56Substantive wire fraud and smuggling.
01:06:59Conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States.
01:07:03Entry of goods by false statements.
01:07:05And one count of aggravated identity theft.
01:07:16There are so many museums and dealers who dealt with him.
01:07:21And so if Latchford's being indicted, where's the shoe going to drop next?
01:07:26Possibly on them.
01:07:27And so museums are contacting us and they're notifying us in advance.
01:07:32They're saying, hey, we have pieces.
01:07:34We don't want to have agents come storming into the museum.
01:07:37We want to try and get ahead of this.
01:07:39If I would know he buy the statues and transfer to somebody,
01:07:47I would not leave him to go to the temple.
01:07:51I would like to be a very simple guy without him.
01:07:58Not to sell my statues.
01:08:00Not to transfer to the rich people.
01:08:07At the same time, he's indicted.
01:08:10The doctors find him to be incompetent.
01:08:12I'm not buying any of it.
01:08:14And so I send agents to his hospital room to actually like inspect him
01:08:18and make sure he really is in as poor a shape as they say he was in.
01:08:23And they actually confirmed that he was in pretty bad shape.
01:08:44And not long after that, his health continued to decline and he passed.
01:08:50I would have liked for him to have faced his day in court and answer for the crimes that he
01:08:59committed.
01:09:03He, if I know he is a criminal, but I still like him.
01:09:07I still admire him.
01:09:10He always good to me and my family.
01:09:13I will pray for him this evening when my wife comes back
01:09:17and wish for his soul to be stable when he's going to be reborn again.
01:09:24Douglas Lashford's family made an enormous amount of money from this and they continue to hold on to that money.
01:09:30Julia Lashford is Douglas Lashford's daughter.
01:09:33Julia signed an agreement with Cambodia to turn over hundreds of pieces in the Lashford estate.
01:09:40It didn't make sense for Julia to hold on to pieces that she couldn't sell because they were tainted.
01:09:46And potentially she could be in violation of law for criminal possession of stolen property.
01:09:52You have the opportunity to come out smelling like roses and unload all this dirty material.
01:09:56So I think for her it was a no-brainer.
01:09:59We had to go through a process of working with the family representative.
01:10:03So I went to London to drive with him to the countryside.
01:10:07So I went with him and we drove out to a pub.
01:10:10I took a photo of the pub, you know, when I walked up just thinking if I disappeared somebody could
01:10:17check my iPhone for that photo.
01:10:21And we went in to have lunch and Julia was there.
01:10:26And then she's like, okay, you ready to see the gold?
01:10:29She opens the trunk of the car, the trunk of the car.
01:10:32And she's got cardboard boxes in there, four cardboard boxes.
01:10:36And it's the Angkorian jewels.
01:10:40It's the crowns and the bracelets and the armlets from the Angkorian Empire in the back seat of her car.
01:10:49Not in the back seat, but in the trunk.
01:10:51But she went and just, you know, opened everything and held it up and showing me, oh, this is an
01:10:57airing.
01:10:58This is a bracelet.
01:11:00And I was deeply saddened and mortified that the treasures of this great ancient empire were in the back trunk
01:11:11of a car a couple hours outside of London.
01:11:24And it was so cool.
01:11:25And I looked up to her as well as the dolls and the two-year-old bodies were in the
01:11:29back, and we were like, oh, I'm no longer sure.
01:11:29You know that she was at home, she was in the back seat of the wall.
01:11:34And it was this kind of thing I was able to draw.
01:11:36Yeah, I was really going to speak to her life here.
01:11:41And it was just a thought of that she was trying to get off it.
01:11:42And she left her as well.
01:11:45And she wished me to let it go.
01:11:48And she left her as well as she was trying to get off it.
01:11:49There's no black and white.
01:11:51The idea that the looter, you know,
01:11:54come back to work with the government,
01:11:56they are back to go, to do the good thing.
01:11:59Finally, to ridig themselves from the bad karma.
01:12:20The looting didn't came directly from them.
01:12:26It came from Douglas Latcheworth.
01:12:34People can still do something good,
01:12:36even when they've done something horrible in their life.
01:12:39But, you know, when they did that when they were kids,
01:12:42they were in a very difficult position.
01:12:46It's remarkable.
01:12:48It's beautiful.
01:12:49And it's not something I would have thought of
01:12:52when I started.
01:12:53I think it's a beautiful story of redemption.
01:13:10The U.S. Attorney's Office on Homeland Security
01:13:12in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
01:13:14had been in negotiations
01:13:16over which pieces would be returned.
01:13:21And it was a surprise to me that all of a sudden,
01:13:24the Met just announced that we're going to return
01:13:28this batch of their Cambodian antiquities.
01:13:33We are heading now to Cambodia International Airport.
01:13:37We are going to get the sculpture today back from New York.
01:13:43It's a big day for Cambodia.
01:13:47And personally, I am very excited.
01:13:50I can't describe.
01:13:51You know, the dream is becoming reality.
01:13:56You know, the dream is becoming reality.
01:14:21The Met have given back these 14 by and large
01:14:25because they know that they are connected to Latchford.
01:14:28If they thought that these were not stolen,
01:14:31I think they would never have given them back.
01:14:34I think they would have fought for the rest of my life
01:14:37for a couple of generations.
01:14:44You know, they have done something unprecedented,
01:14:47given back so many to a country like Cambodia.
01:14:50But there's no, there's no admission.
01:14:53There's no nothing.
01:14:55I think it's wrong.
01:14:56If they really want to sincerely help Cambodia heal,
01:15:01they need to give the province off.
01:15:03They need to help us with the history.
01:15:06I believe that they know.
01:15:08They know the background.
01:15:10They know why these are blood antiquities.
01:15:21It's raining so hard.
01:15:23Is it a sign of joy?
01:15:25Is it tears of joy?
01:15:46After so many decades, after war,
01:15:50and so much havoc and damage in the country,
01:15:53I believe it's wonderful that Cambodia
01:15:55is now being recognized as a leader for restitution.
01:15:59This is a beautiful, beautiful message to the world.
01:16:05I think this is true no craft,
01:16:10but there are many times that we until next year have been
01:16:12like,ffected with the inshaust in the country.
01:16:17There are many people who believe most,
01:16:19The water is freezinged with the water.
01:16:21And we have to go and see the water.
01:16:23More water is missing in the water.
01:16:23And we have to work.
01:16:24The water is in control of the water.
01:16:25This is the water.
01:16:26It's the water.
01:16:27The water is in control of the water.
01:16:31The water is in control of the water.
01:16:43The Joggleat School of Pachuck
01:16:45And the Joggleat School of Pachuck
01:16:46And the Joggleat School of Pachuck
01:16:49If you get married, you'll get married.
01:16:54Even if you take the不 nearerentious life, you'll get married.
01:17:05And I must come to my family.
01:17:09So I will be born together.
01:17:12We are now born together.
01:17:12But a new family will be born together,
01:17:15and he will be born together.
01:17:26having visited the different temples and seeing the empty spots and seeing everything that was
01:17:31missing it just made me realize that there's a lot of work to do and there are a lot of
01:17:35pieces out there still I would like to express my saying to everyone who contribute to try to find
01:17:48our ancestor it's hard to express in a human language
01:18:02it is a beauty it is a hard work how Khmer people they become a thousand years ago through the
01:18:12hard
01:18:12time the darkness and the brightness of our history and so that really important for every
01:18:18Cambodian people that our ancestors come back home in the beginning everything is always hard so when
01:18:29you see progress you you have more you feel more optimistic and I will bring my my children here
01:18:37to see and I'm feeling very positive very positive right now to see so many people come together right
01:18:47now and do something positive and to know that you know this touch this has touched so many people's
01:18:54hearts it's it's incredible
01:19:23and you want to know
01:19:27so many of us
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